Atlas Shrugged

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struggle behind the question. "I want to quit what I'm doing and go to work. I mean, real work—in steel
making, like I thought I'd started to, once. I want to earn my keep. I'm tired of being a bedbug."
Rearden could not resist smiling and reminding him, in the tone of a quotation, "Now why use such
words, Non-Absolute? If we don't use ugly words, we won't have any ugliness and—" But he saw the
desperate earnestness of the boy's face and stopped, his smile vanishing.
"I mean it, Mr. Rearden. And I know what the word means and it's the right word. I'm tired of being
paid, with your money, to do nothing except make it impossible for you to make any money at all. I
know that anyone who works today is only a sucker for bastards like me, but . . . well, God damn it, I'd
rather be a sucker, if that's all there's left to be!"
His voice had risen to a cry. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Rearden," he said stiffly, looking away. In a
moment, he went on in his woodenly unemotional tone. "I want to get out of the
Deputy-Director-of-Distribution racket. I don't know that I'd be of much use to you, I've got a college
diploma in metallurgy, but that's not worth the paper it's printed on. But I think I've learned a little about
the work in the two years I've been here—and if you could use me at all, as sweeper or scrap man or
whatever you'd trust me with, I'd tell them where to put the deputy directorship and I'd go to work for
you tomorrow, next week, this minute or whenever you say." He avoided looking at Rearden, not in a
manner of evasion, but as if he had no right to do it.
"Why were you afraid to ask me?" said Rearden gently.
The boy glanced at him with indignant astonishment, as if the answer were self-evident. "Because after
the way I started here and the way I acted and what I'm deputy of, if I come asking you for favors, you
ought to kick me in the teeth!"
"You have learned a great deal in the two years you've been here."
"No, I—" He glanced at Rearden, understood, looked away and said woodenly, "Yeah . . . if that's
what you mean."
"Listen, kid, I'd give you a job this minute and I'd trust you with more than a sweeper's job, if it were up
to me. But have you forgotten the Unification Board? I'm not allowed to hire you and you're not allowed
to quit. Sure, men are quitting all the time, and we're hiring others under phony names and fancy papers
proving that they've worked here for years. You know it, and thanks for keeping your mouth shut. But
do you think that if I hired you that way, your friends in Washington would miss it?"
The boy shook his head slowly.
"Do you think that if you quit their service to become a sweeper, they wouldn't understand your reason?"
The boy nodded.
"Would they let you go?"
The boy shook his head. After a moment, he said in a tone of forlorn astonishment, "I hadn't thought of
that at all, Mr. Rearden. I forgot them. I kept thinking of whether you'd want me or not and that the only
thing that counted was your decision.”
"I know."